Since today is my brother Andrew's birthday, I thought I'd also celebrate
in Inner Toob by inducting one of his favorite musicians (and mine as well) into
the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame.

WARREN ZEVON

Warren Zevon met the requirements for induction by appearing in three
different sitcoms as a member of the League Of Themselves - 'The Larry Sanders
Show', 'Suddenly, Susan', and a cameo appearance on Ellen DeGeneres' eponymous
sitcom. (Unfortunately, I couldn't find a clip for that.)

Add to this his many variety show appearances, and he's got a solid body of
work as a citizen of Toobworld. But what really sells it in the end was his
final appearance on 'The Late Show with David Letterman', where he was very
candid about what he was facing......

When I celebrated my brother Bill's birthday back in March, I chose his
favorite character from 'Game Of Thrones' to mark the occasion in the "ASOTV"
showcase.

Today is my brother Andrew's birthday. And to mark this occasion, I've
chosen the most evil O'Brien in all of literature.

Oh, I'm not suggesting that AJ is evil. No, in my family that honorific
goes to my nephew Ian......

O'BRIEN

CREATED BY:

George Orwell

PORTRAYED BY:

Andre Morell

The actor even had a variation on your first name!

AS SEEN IN:

'BBC Sunday Night Theatre'

("1984")

TV STATUS:

Recastaway

TV DIMENSION:

Alternate Toobworld

From Wikipedia:

O'Brien is a fictional character and the main antagonist in George Orwell's
novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The protagonist Winston Smith, living in a
dystopian society governed by the Party, feels strangely attracted to Inner
Party member O'Brien. Orwell never reveals O'Brien's first name.

Winston
suspects that O'Brien is secretly opposing the Party. Eventually O'Brien
approaches Winston with some leading remarks which seem to confirm Winston's
suspicions. Winston finds the courage to approach him candidly, declaring
himself an enemy of the totalitarian state. At first, Winston's intuition seems
to be correct: O'Brien presents himself as a member of the "Brotherhood" seeking
to overthrow the Party.

When Winston is later arrested, it turns out that
O'Brien is actually entirely loyal to the Party. He reveals himself as he enters
the cell by responding to Winston's exclamation ("They've got you too!") by
wryly commenting, "They got me a long time ago." This may mean that he once had
rebellious feelings like Winston, or it may simply refer to him becoming
involved with the totalitarian Ingsoc movement at an early stage. The point is
never elaborated on again in the novel.

O'Brien's job appears to be to
search for potential thought-criminals (citizens who think something that is
deemed to be unacceptable by the party, this could even be done by accident),
lure them in by pretending to be on their side, then arrest and "cure" them.
O'Brien tortures Winston to cure him of his "insanity," in particular his
"false" notion that there exists an external, self-evident reality independent
of the Party; O'Brien explains that reality is simply what the Party defines it
as.

He is entirely honest about the brutal cynicism of the Party; the
Party does not seek power to do anything good, but simply to revel in that
power: "Always, Winston, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory,
the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of
the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever."

Even in
the torture scenes, there is a strange intimacy that persists between Winston
and O'Brien, who displays an uncanny ability to infer what Winston is thinking.
O'Brien even states that Winston's mind appeals to him, and that it resembles
his own mind, except that Winston happens to be insane. Eventually, in Room 101,
O'Brien does manage to torture Winston into submission so that he "willingly"
embraces the philosophy of the Party.

While "O'Brien" is a well-known
Irish family name, there is no recognizable Irish background to the character
other than his name. Various commentators have tried to infer why Orwell had
given the character this specific name, but Orwell's surviving notes provide no
real clue.

In the 1954 BBC Television adaptation of "Nineteen
Eighty-Four", the character was played by André Morell. Canadian actor Lorne
Greene played O'Brien in a 1953 adaptation on CBS's anthology series 'Studio
One'.

In a third production for TV, Joseph O'Conor played O'Brien on 'Theatre
625' in the episode "The World Of George Orwell: 1984". Over in the Cineverse,
Michael Redgrave played "O'Connor" in the 1956 movie version. (It is believed
the name was changed to avoid confusion with the star, Edmond O'Brien, who
played Winston Smith.) Decades later, Richard Burton's last film role was as
O'Brien.

Andrew,

The second-best gift Mom and Dad ever gave me was you as a
brother. Although technically you were there to change the TV channels for me
and to get me a soda. (And let's face it, I have to say the best gift was Leah
as not only my sister but my god-child as well. I have to say it or she'll kill
me.)

Later today will be a more appropriate celebration of your birthday here at
Inner Toob - we'll be planting a tree, I mean, we'll be inducting a new member
into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame in your honor....

Friday, June 15, 2012

After a wild night of partying during which they flew up to Napa to see the
Pugs perform, Peter Bash and Jared Franklin's office/home had a pet peacock whom
they named "Douglas".

It will be the contention of Toobworld Central (until contradicted by any future scripts) that the peacock was named "Douglas" after Douglas Brackman, a
senior partner of the MacKenzie-Brackman-Chaney-Kuzak law firm in Los
Angeles.

Franklin and Bash probably faced off against him in a courtroom, and this
might have been considered more of an insult than a tribute.

Thanks to 'The Ray Bradbury Theater', there are at least three different
Toobworlds in which the events of 'The Martian Chronicles' take place. Proof of
this can be found with the character of John Wilder. In 'The Martian
Chronicles', Colonel Wilder was played by Rock Hudson.

But the character was recast twice in 'The Ray Bradbury Theater' - George
Touliatos played the role in the episode "The Long Years", while Kenneth Welsh
was Wilder in "And The Moon Be Still As Bright."

JOHN WILDER[KENNETH WELSH]

JOHN WILDER[GEORGE TOULIATOS]

So each of those episodes and the mini-series means that we're seeing "The
Martian Chronicles" from three different TV dimensions.

Another example:

TWO DIFFERENT WILDERSWITH TWO DIFFERENT PARKHILLS

And yet neither of them are of Earth Prime-Time. Bradbury's vision of Mars
clashes with what was established in other TV shows like 'Alfred Hitchcock
Presents', 'The Twilight Zone', 'The Outer Limits', and of course, 'My Favorite
Martian'.

His timeline also skewed wrong with that established in Toobworld, as
already recounted here in Inner Toob.

As the years in the real world got closer to the date of death for the
Hathaways, one might have thought Bradbury would have pushed it farther into the
future. But apparently he remained adamant on that point. And I think I know
why......

Bradbury would insist that the only piece of science fiction he ever wrote
was "Fahrenheit 451", that everything else was fantasy. By making it impossible
for his Martian stories to jibe with the timeline of the real world, they are no
longer the possibility promised in science fiction. They are tales of
fantasy.

(It's funny - Bradbury would argue that his works were fantasy while Anne
McCaffrey would argue that her series of books about the Dragonriders of Pern
were science fiction. Yet many fans would hold them both to be the
opposite.)

Out there somewhere in the dimension of Earth Prime-Time is the main
Toobworld's own "Martian Chronicles"; one that won't clash with the established
Martian history.

A third mission, "Zeus III", lands on Mars in June 2001. The men, except
for the archaeologist Spender and Colonel Wilder, become more boisterous.
Spender loses his temper when Briggs starts dropping empty wine bottles into a
clear blue canal. He knocks him into the canal. He leaves the rest of the
landing party to explore Martian ruins. Spender (who always has had deep
misgivings about the mission) then goes on a killing spree to avenge the
destroyed Martian civilization and manages to shoot all astronauts except
Parkhill and Wilder, who shoots Spender in the chest before he has the
opportunity to kill them as well.

From the IMDb:

Major Spender ( Bernie Casey ) finds the Martians dead, wiped out by
chicken pox brought by the previous expeditions. He becomes obsessed by Martian
culture to the point where it drives him insane. He kills three of Wilder's men,
and Wilder kills him in return. As he holds the dying Spender in his arms,
Wilder wonders what sort of future Man will have on Mars....

MAJ. JEFF SPENDER I just believe in things that were done. And there
were so many things done here. Streets and houses and books and big canals and
clocks and places with names - things that were used and touched for centuries.
And I don't see how we could ever use them without feeling uncomfortable. Oh, we
could change the names, but the old names will still be there. So no matter how
we touch Mars, we won't be able to really touch it. See, that'll make us angry.
We'll get mad at that and just rip it up. We'll change it to suit ourselves. And
ruin it. Just like we've ruined Earth.

COL. JOHN WILDER We won't ruin
it.

MAJ. JEFF SPENDER No? Us Earthmen have a talent for ruining things.
If there are any Martians alive in those hills, they're going to grow to hate
us.

And here's how Jeff Spender looked in a different TV dimension:

So far, the only time Jeffrey Spender has shown up in the main Toobworld, he was an FBI agent and half-brother to Fox Mulder (as seen in 'The X-Files'.)

Thursday, June 14, 2012

For the people of 'Eureka', Oregon, it wasn't on April Fool's Day when they
celebrated pranks and practical jokes. It was on Feynman's Day. Apprarently
the world-renowned physicist Richard Feynman was a great lover of practical
jokes.

Since Feynman was born on May 11, 1918, we could assume that the 'Eureka'
episode "In Too Deep' - which occurred on Feynman's Day - then I think the
"holiday" was taking place on May 11, Feynman's birthday. Most people would
choose the date of birth rather than the day they died to celebrate someone
Like with Abraham Lincoln. I know that's what Yoko would want for
John.......

So "In Too Deep" had to take place on May 11 of this year. We can then use
that as a marker to plot out the positions for the other episodes of the series
on the Toobworld timeline.

The one we'd still have trouble with is last year's Christmas episode. I
think we have to just chalk that up to being about one of the alternate
dimensions.....

Miles Ewan O'Hara was a plain-clothes police detective in one of the largest metropolises in Nebraska - perhaps Omaha, maybe Lincoln. There he married "the farmer's daughter" - the eldest child of James and Frances (née Blassingame) McCutcheon. Mr. and Mrs. O'Hara raised three children of their own - oldest daughter Helen Juliet and the fraternal twins James and Francis.

B.L. McCutcheon often argued with his sisterabout the toll her marriage to O'Hara was taking on her.....

After raising her three children to adulthood in the country's heartland as best she could, Mrs. Miles O'Hara suddenly passed away, leaving Detective O'Hara distraught. (Mrs. O'Hara's younger brother, B.L. McCutcheon blamed O'Hara for the death of his beloved sister. McCutcheon claimed that O'Hara's over-zealous involvement in his job, which left her alone to raise the children, became a burden which was too much for her to bear.)

This is why Miles O'Hara jumped at the chance to relocate to Gotham City in order to become its police chief when the offer came. The position had the advantage of freeing him from so many memories of his wife back in Nebraska. As police chief in Gotham City during the turbulent 1960's, there would be plenty of misadventures to keep Miles O'Hara from brooding over his late wife.

Unfortunately, Chief O'Hara - along with his boss, Commissioner Gordon, came to depend too much on the crime-fighting capabilities of the Caped Crusader, Batman (with his sidekick, Robin the Boy Wonder.) Many outside observers began to see him as something of a joke as the Police Chief.

"Any ordinary crook the department can handle.

But the when in comes to the likes of Penguin,

there is only one being on earth..."

Being quoted thus in the papers certainly didn't help his image.....

At any rate, Chief O'Hara tried to instill the same dedication to the Law in his children as he had, and for the most part he was successful.....

World War III has occurred on Earth, and Mars was evacuated shortly before.
Only a few scattered humans remain on Mars. One of them is Benjamin Driscoll,
who lives alone in First Town. One day, he hears a telephone ringing in
someone's home, and suddenly realizes that he should answer it to find
companionship. Missing the call, and several others, he sits down with a phone
book of Mars and starts dialing at A.

After days of calling without answers, he
starts calling hotels, and then (after guessing where he thinks a woman would
most likely spend her time) calls the biggest beauty salon on Mars (in New Texas
City) and a woman answers. Tremendously excited and overcome with romantic
dreams, he flies 1,500 miles to New Texas City to meet Genevieve Selsor.

She
turns out to be thoroughly narcissistic and entirely obsessed with her own good
looks.

Disappointed, Driscoll runs away when she rejects his advances but
still expects him to make a nice breakfast the next day while repairing her
sauna.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

At this point, I think we should go off on a tangent and discuss Tim O'Hara's godfather, Maxwell Q. Klinger. (Mostly so that I have something for the monthly salute to 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'. You'll see what I mean......)

There may be those who dispute my idea that Tim O'Hara was partially of Lebanese descent, but I prefer to look for ways to disprove that it couldn't have happened, besides the fact that both of them were born in Toledo, Ohio. (Always remember when tilting at windmills, they might be giants.)

Here's a good example:

As for Max having a sister who could have married Timothy O'Hara, Sr..... While serving in Korea with a mobile medical unit, Max Klinger mentioned his sister who married a swarthy, dark-haired olive-picker. But that doesn't mean she was his only sister.

Max Klinger had several cousins and nephews who all bore an uncanny resemblance to each other. This was mostly due to that distinctive Klinger schnozz borne by all the men in the family bearing the family name. (It was a attributed to a curse laid down by a witch.) But Tim O'Hara didn't have that prominent proboscis - first off, his last name was O'Hara, and he was only half-Lebanese.

The most famous of all these cousins was Charlie Klinger (although he could be Max's younger brother), who moved to New York City to find his fortune. He started out working the Snappy Service deli concession that serviced the offices for 'The Alan Brady Show'. Later in life, he managed one of the dry cleaning stores owned by George Jefferson. (But he would claim that he was the owner.)

But there were two others, twin cousins named Fred and Benny Klinger, who made their way to Los Angeles and each had a close encounter with their "semi-cousin" Tim O'Hara. Not having seen Tim since he was a lad not yet in high school, they wouldn't have recognized Tim had they spotted him. But having reviewed the evidence, I don't think they saw him. (Or in Benny's case, at least not until the trial.....)

Fred Klinger was an orderly working fifteen years (since 1950) at a local Los Angeles hospital. (For the purpose of this theory, I'm going to claim it was Community General.) When he crashed his gurney into the one carrying Tim, the reporter didn't really get a chance to see him after the impact. In case the argument could be made that in those short seconds, Tim did look up and fixate on Fred, it could be that one of the symptoms of fluosis, the Martian ailment which he contracted, was blurring of the vision. Otherwise, why didn't he shout out, "Hey, Uncle Max!"

(By the way, Benny and Fred Klinger were born the same year as Tim O'Hara, as was Charlie Klinger, all in Toledo.)

Later, when their paths crossed again, Tim wasn't looking up and Fred had already passed by.....

As for Benny Klinger, Tim knew about him after Exigius 12½ revealed what he learned by eavesdropping into Mr. Philbrick's office. Benny wasn't at the warehouse when the police arrived and according to Tim's news story, he wasn't arrested until later - for which Tim wasn't present. However, after the episode ran and the story continued, Tim would have finally seen him at the trial. There he would certainly have noticed the resemblance to his Uncle Max.

So those splainins should remove any Zonks about the Klinger twins meeting Tim O'Hara.

For those that don't know, Benny Klinger being a criminal wasn't a fluke for the family. Most of the Klinger men had arrest records. This could be why Timothy O'Hara Sr. decided to move to Los Angeles so that his son would not fall under the influence of Uncle Max and his other maternal relatives.

Yes, Team Toobworld, it's true. Even Max Klinger had a police record. When he returned home to Toledo after the Korean Conflict, his family shunned him for having married Soon-Lee. Without their assistance in getting re-established in the community surrounding N. Michigan Street, Max and Soon-Lee fell on hard times. Out of desperation, Max turned to petty crimes and got caught. His former commanding officer, Sherman Potter, intervened to get the charges dropped - provided he move to St. Louis and work at the VA Hospital there.

Among Max's other relatives who had criminal records:

an Uncle (unnamed) who was a Chicago hitman for $100. (3.11) {possibly "Hasan the enforcer" the most important member of the Klinger Clan {10.17}

an Uncle Bob who served two years for involvement in Toledo's "Payolla Scandal" (6.19).

an Uncle "7199199", in jail for counterfeiting (9.12)

an Uncle Harry, supposedly the best "whiplash lawyer" in Toledo who is serving a jail sentence of "15 to 25" (10.9).

an Uncle Habib who is serving a jail sentence of "1 to 5"; he sent Klinger a Zoot Suit in (11.2).

I don't think Tonoose, the leading patriarch in the Lebanese-American community of Toledo, had a criminal record. But hey, you never know.....

MUG SHOT?

SHOWS CITED:

'AfterM*A*S*H'

'All In The Family'

'Diagnosis Murder'

'The Dick Van Dyke Show'

'The Jeffersons'

'Mad About You'

'M*A*S*H'

'Make Room For Daddy'

'My Favorite Martian'

Coming up next: "Hail To The Chief"

BCnU!

My thanks to the 'M*A*S*H' wiki for the background information on Max Klinger. Everything else can be blamed on me....

PALO ALTO, CA—A report released Tuesday by physicists at Stanford
University has revealed that the entire known universe—including the whole of
human civilization and the totality of all existing matter and energy—is
actually the fictional setting of a police-procedural television series called
'Hard Case'.

[Genevieve Selsor] turns out to be thoroughly narcissistic and entirely
obsessed with her own good looks. [Ben] Driscoll asks her out on a date, and she
reveals that she decided to stay behind simply because "they wouldn't let me
take all my clothes with me back to Earth."

[Genevieve] enjoys having access to all the clothes, makeup, footwear etc.
in New Texas City without having to pay for anything, but also laments the fact
that she has to do all the cooking and technical maintenance herself.
Disappointed, Driscoll runs away when she rejects his advances but still expects
him to make a nice breakfast the next day while repairing her sauna.

BCnU!

Sending out this "ASOTV" showcase to Jeffrey Paul Baker, Bernadette Peters'
Number One Fan.......

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

The grandson [Conjecture - his name was Ewan] of Sgt. Biff O'Hara, who became a sheriff in Nebraska, had three sons - the oldest was Miles, the middle son was named Timothy, and the youngest was Seamus. Timothy moved back to Toledo, Ohio, only to find that the neighborhoods which had been the bastion for his Irish forebears were now home to Lebanese immigrants. A man named Tonoose, who had Americanized his family name to Williams, acted as the unofficial head of these inter-connected families.

Timothy O'Hara ended up marrying one of those Lebanese-Americans, a girl from the Klinger family. They had a son whom they named Timothy O'Hara, Jr. (It is a common practice to name the oldest son after oneself, which is why we made the claim that the middle son's name was Timothy. The names of the other two O'Hara boys, Miles and Seamus, were established on TV.)

Tim O'Hara's godfather was his mother's youngest brother Max Klinger. (Although the actors Jamie Farr and Bill Bixby were born in the same year, Max and Tim were separated by at least a decade, perhaps even two, on the Toobworld timeline.)

But before Tim could reach high school, the O'Haras packed up and moved to Los Angeles.

Tim O'Hara eventually became a reporter for the Los Angeles Sun, and he took in an older male companion whom he passed off as his "Uncle Martin". (It's not what you think - not that there's anything wrong with that!) Tim O'Hara has not been seen on Earth Prime-Time for many decades, and it's believed by the ruling council of Toobworld Central that his "Uncle Martin" came back for him and took Tim O'Hara on a trip that could be described as "out of this world".

Meanwhile, the connection between the O'Hara family and the Lebanese-Americans of Toledo continued... in a way. One of the grandsons of Aloysius O'Hara who remained in Toledo had a son who married a nurse named Kathleen Daly. After O'Hara died from wounds he suffered earlier in World War II, his widow Kathy and their young daughter Linda moved to New York for a fresh start. There, while tending to a sick boy named Rusty Williams, she fell in love with his father, Danny - a nightclub performer and the nephew of Tonoose, the patriarch of the Toledo Lebanese-Americans.

Sam Parkhill [was] the only survivor (apart from Wilder) of the third Zeus
mission. He has opened a hamburger bar on Mars with his wife, when a lone
Martian walks in. He panics and kills him. Suddenly, numerous Martians appear in
sand ships. Parkhill takes his wife to his very own sand ship and flees. The
Martians catch up and give Parkhill a message: he now owns half of Mars.
Unfortunately, the fleet of 10,000 rockets filled with 100,000 "hungry
customers" won't be coming to patronize his restaurant, as the nuclear war has
begun on Earth.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Running through this week are the chapters in the O'Hara genealogical album - short anecdotes about the family tree beginning back in the 1870s and continuing through today. It's more or less a direct line from Aloysius to Juliet, but with side trips to showcase other members of the family like Tim and his "Uncle Martin", the widow Kathy (nee Daly), and "Fishface", the last grandson of Krypton.

The following theories of "relateeveety" are just that - a theories. Mileage - I mean, lineage! - may vary in other shared universes......

"CHIEFLY O'HARAS"

[EPISODE ONE]

"BOOTS AND SADDLES"

ALOYSIUS "BIFF" O'HARA

"TO PROTECT AND SERVE"

For one particular branch of the O'Hara family tree in Toobworld, that has been the motto for many generations, going back to at least the Civil War.

For the purposes of this theory of relateeveety, that's when we begin this lineage - with Aloysius O'Hara, an Army sergeant in the U.S. Cavalry who was better known to the troops as "Biff" O'Hara. Stationed at Fort Apache on the Western frontier after the war, Sgt. O'Hara was "lifer" - one could say he was married to the Army and would be so to the day he died.

But Aloysius "Biff" O'Hara was actually married. However, he left his wife and son behind in Toledo, Ohio, to serve his country. With nothing left behind to remember him save the monthly stipend from his Army pay.

One of his grandchildren, an O'Hara lad whose first name is unknown, decided to follow his grandfather west. He settled down in Ashford, Nebraska, and there became the County Sheriff, a position that would one day be shouldered by his own grandson.

SHOWS CITED:

'The Adventures Of Rin Tin Tin'

'Make Room For Daddy'

'Mayberry RFD'

'The Mickey Mouse Club' - 'Annette'

'My Favorite Martian'

'O'Hara, U.S. Treasury'

'Psych'

Coming up next: "Toledo"

BCnU!

Thanks go out to Stan Landman, one of the Iddiot Brethren, who suggested the inclusion of Sgt. O'Hara......

Just An Old Cowhand On The TiVo Grande

As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"